FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- Matthew Broderick says he's puzzled by the bashing he's received for his actions during the first New York preview of "The Starry Messenger," a new play by good friend Kenneth Lonergan.

"We had to rush to our first preview and then I guess we got some press just after one show, which I don't really understand," the actor says.

Messages posted on various theater Web sites said a prompter in the front row needed to assist Broderick with his lines during the Oct. 26 performance of the three-hour play, produced by off-Broadway's New Group.

Broderick adds, "It's going very well now, I think, now that we've had a whole week. And it's going to be really good by the time it opens."

New Group artistic director Scott Elliott said "The Starry Messenger," the story of an astronomy teacher's affair with a younger woman, will open Nov. 23, a week later than originally planned.

Woods on Friday declined to discuss the lawsuit in detail, but said he wants "justice" for his brother, Michael, who was 49 when he died at Kent Hospital in Warwick of an apparent heart attack.

Woods, who grew up in Warwick, claims his brother received negligent medical care.

A jury was selected Friday, and opening statements are scheduled for Monday in Kent County Superior Court.

Judge OKs plea deal

for `Girls Gone Wild' founder

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A judge sentenced "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis on Friday to 301 days already served and a year of probation for filing false income tax returns and bribing Nevada jail workers.

U.S. District Judge S. James Otero accepted the terms of a plea deal between Francis and prosecutors, who struck the agreement after learning on the eve of trial that a key witness had withheld information from them.

An ecstatic Francis politely answered questions during the hearing, then turned and kissed his mother after he was sentenced.

"I think we won that one," he said after the hearing.

The soft-porn mogul, who filmed and marketed videos of young women, was indicted by a federal grand jury on tax evasion charges in 2007. He initially was accused of taking $20 million in fraudulent tax deductions.

Under the deal, Francis pleaded guilty in September to two misdemeanor counts of filing false tax returns and one count of bribing Nevada jail workers in exchange for food.

He acknowledged omitting more than $500,000 in interest income on his 2003 tax returns and said he gave more than $5,000 in goods to the jail employees.